I Wish My Dad: The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

By Romal Tune and Jordan Tune

"I Wish My Dad . . .": what a simple way to start a sentence. But those four words hold the power to heal wounds men may not even know they carry.

From author, speaker, and social entrepreneur Romal Tune and his son, Jordan, comes this tour de force for fathers and sons about healing the unfinished business between them. What do sons wish they had received from their fathers? What might honest, healing conversations between fathers and sons look like?

Tune was raised mostly without a father. He and his dad connected briefly when he was a teenager, and then had no relationship for decades. After years of inner work via therapy and faith, Tune realized that neither he nor his dad possessed what they needed to live up to each other's expectations. He began to wonder if other men also longed to have vulnerable conversations with their fathers--about good memories, about pain, and about what their relationship could still become.

So he sat down with seventeen men of diverse ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds for "I Wish My Dad" conversations. In the pages of this book, he invites us into the room as the men unpack relationships with their fathers, learn to work through emotional pain, recount moments of tenderness and care, and describe risks they took to heal and connect with their fathers. Tune also offers us strategies and prompts for initiating our own "I Wish My Dad" conversations. And with no pretense, he and Jordan recount their own "I Wish My Dad" interview, which helped them chart the way toward a transformed relationship.

I Wish My Dad helps fathers, and their sons move through the past to find deep connection in the present. The lessons in these pages will free us to have--and become--the kind of dad we wish for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Broadleaf Books
• Release date: Oct 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781506481586

Book preview

Praise for I Wish My Dad: The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

"As a father and the product of a fatherless home, I can say: this book is gold. We need tools, roadmaps, and sage wisdom to become who we were made to be and reinvest in the next generation. The heartfelt transparency of the stories in I Wish My Dad gives men permission to share their truth, heal, and learn the emotional skills needed for healthy father-and-son relationships."

—LeCrae, Grammy Award–winning hip-hop artist and New York Times bestselling author

"Healthy and vulnerable spaces for men and their sons are a necessity in today’s culture. The stories shared by fathers and sons in I Wish My Dad allow readers a glimpse into the emotional needs of men that few rarely get to express. This book shares truths that need to be heard."

—David Michael Wyatt, singer and songwriter

"I Wish My Dad serves as the model for men to have conversations, leading to healing and strengthening of father-and-son relationships that will have a positive impact for generations."

—Nicole L. Cammack, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, and president and CEO of Black Mental Wellness

Romal Tune’s authenticity and genuine desire to be a better father, combined with the strength and courage of his son, gives us a powerful, honest, humble, and hopeful invitation to become better together through honesty, openness, and love. The stories shared by men in this book will change your life and your relationships.

—Danielle Strickland, author, speaker, and advocate

"Vulnerability is a contagious cure. Tune models that with every page in this book. I Wish My Dad has the potential to cure us from our despair and free us to hope again."

—John Onwuchekwa, pastor of Cornerstone Church and cofounder of Portrait Coffee

"I Wish My Dad is more than a right-on-time read; it is an invitation for fathers and sons to be the curators of the change they are seeking to see in themselves and in their families. The stories in this love-offering of a book will help to heal hearts, homes, and relationships between fathers and sons."

—Shawn Dove, founder of Corporation for Black Male Achievement and managing partner of New Profit

"I Wish My Dad is emotional, insightful, humbling, palatable, challenging, and needed; you will come away not only rooting for these men, but believing there is hope for yourself."

—A. D. Lumkile Thomason, author and filmmaker

"Romal and Jordan masterfully invite us not only into the struggles of father-and-son relationships, but they give a voice to the endless possibilities that can heal those broken relationships. I Wish My Dad shines a light on the art of listening and the hope we have when we truly hear each other."

—Preston Perry, poet, teacher, and apologist

Hearing these men’s stories has given me access to the conversations my father and I have yet to share. I am more tender, more compassionate now toward my father. There is healing within these pages for sons no doubt, and daughters as well.

—Juanita Rasmus, author of Learning to Be: Finding Your Center after the Bottom Falls Out

I Wish My Dad

I Wish My Dad

The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

Romal Tune

with Jordan Tune

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

I WISH MY DAD

The Power of Vulnerable Conversations between Fathers and Sons

Copyright © 2022 Romal Tune. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [e-mail] or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Some of the names in this book have been changed to respect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover photo: Sheretta Danielle Photography

Cover design: 1517 Media

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-8157-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-8158-6

I have felt for my father a longing that was almost physical, something passionate . . . It has bewildered me, even thrown me into depression. It is mysterious to me exactly what it is I wanted from my father. I have seen this longing in other men—and see it now in my own sons, their longing for me. I think that I have glimpsed it once or twice in my father’s feelings about his father. What surprises me is how angry a man becomes sometimes in the grip of what is, in essence, an unrequited passion.

—Lance Morrow, The Chief

If trauma can be passed down through generations, then so can healing.

—Matthew Williams

Contents

A Father’s Introduction

A Son’s Introduction

Chapter 1: I Wish My Dad Didn’t Silence My Voice

Ernest

Chapter 2: I Wish My Dad Allowed Me to Share My Feelings

Phil

Chapter 3: I Wish My Dad Affirmed My Value

Michael-Ray

Chapter 4: I Wish My Dad Loved My Mom More

Joe

Chapter 5: I Wish My Dad Loved Himself More

Max

Chapter 6: I Wish My Dad Took Care of Himself

Daniel

Chapter 7: I Wish My Dad Didn’t Assert His Masculinity

Hodari

Chapter 8: I Wish My Dad Gave Me His Attention

Kevin

Chapter 9: I Wish My Dad Didn’t Abandon Me

Vance

Chapter 10: I Wish My Dad Kept His Promises

Andre

Chapter 11: I Wish My Dad Was Loyal to Our Home

Rudy

Chapter 12: I Wish My Dad Put Feelings before Finances

Simon

Chapter 13: I Wish My Dad Took Responsibility for His Mistakes

Rob

Chapter 14: I Wish My Dad Was Vulnerable

Jorge

Chapter 15: I Wish My Dad Said I Love You

Isaac

Chapter 16: I Wish My Dad Gave as Much to Me as He Gave to the Movement

Kamasi

Chapter 17: I Wish My Dad Gave Me More of His Time

Andy

Conclusion

How to Have Your Own I Wish My Dad Conversation

A Father-to-Son Conversation

A Son-to-Father Conversation

Acknowledgments

Notes

A Father’s Introduction

Romal Tune

(Jordan’s father)

I did not grow up with my dad. He had a relationship with my mother for a time, but when they broke up, he vanished. I never knew why they didn’t make it; neither he nor my mother shared many details. I heard snippets here and there, but the full story never came together.

I was raised in California, by my mom, along with the help of my grandparents. My mom and I moved frequently—sometimes because we didn’t have money and sometimes because my mom felt a neighborhood was too dangerous. As a result, I attended a different school every year from elementary up until the eleventh grade, when I met my dad.

Before I met my dad, I had the worst thoughts about him, including wishing he were dead. As much as I tried to ignore his existence, I couldn’t. The disdain grew as I got older, and it festered in me. So when I first met my father when I was fifteen years old, it was awkward—for both of us. I had developed a personality and habits shaped by the struggles of growing up in poverty and being surrounded by crime and addiction. Survival was all I knew. My dad hadn’t been there to protect me from dangers or to help me understand what it means to be a good man.

A year after meeting him, I moved in with him, his wife, and their three sons for two years. They lived in a world I had only seen on television: a spacious home with a white picket fence in the suburbs of New Jersey, while I had been moving from place to place with my mom just trying to survive. Once I moved there, however, our true personalities emerged and often clashed. I detested the idea of chores. He drank too much. I skipped school. He had a volatile temper. I rebelled. He cursed at me. I consorted with the wrong crowd. He got angrier. In the end, after two years of conflict, I moved in with my grandparents before heading off to basic training and the army. My relationship with my father returned to what it had been before that time: nothing.

For the next fifteen years we were estranged, a period of time in which the original feelings of abandonment, confusion, disappointment, and anger reemerged. I was not paralyzed by my father’s absence—I went on with my life. But I was, in a way, haunted by it. I served in the army for four years, and then became a student at Howard University. A year after graduating from Howard, I attended Duke University School of Divinity. Both of my children, Aman and Jordan, were born during that time.

Finally, in 2017, my father and I reconnected. I visited him in Houston, where he had moved. It was a pleasant, encouraging time together. We had grown in different ways, and we were now able to communicate with each other with civility and as men. Our time together was so fulfilling that I left that visit with a thought: I wish my dad had spent more time with me.

I wish my dad . . . That sentence fragment grabbed my attention, causing me to pause and reflect. I came up with lots of different ways to finish the sentence. Finishing that thought allowed me to give voice to all the things I had longed for from my father. It gave me an outlet for emotions that I didn’t even know I had.

I wish my dad . . . Finishing the sentence gave me a way to be honest with what I had yearned for, a way to name the love for my father that created those longings in the first place. It was a way to identify what was missing and to admit that I needed things from my dad. Completing that sentence was a way to say that I yearned for deeper connection with my father and that my relationship with him felt incomplete.

You have to diagnose a heart condition before you can find the right prescription. There is medicine for the broken heart of a son, and it involves breaking the silent oath of being a strong man. It involves naming the pain on the other side of the thought: I wish my dad . . .

It was such a simple start to a sentence. But I began to wonder whether it contained the power to heal wounds I didn’t even know I had.

The Sentence That Changes Everything

Was I the only man with unfinished business with his dad? Was I the only one who had a broken or sometimes nonexistent relationship with his father? I couldn’t be alone in this, I thought. Census data shows that of the 121 million men in the United States, about 60 percent of us are fathers to biological, step, or adopted children.¹ That’s a lot of dads. Perhaps other men’s wishes about their fathers were not totally unfilled. Or perhaps their wish list was even more extensive than mine.

What if my father had been around when I was growing up? What if he had been the kind of father I needed, giving me guidance and affection? Surely his impact on me would have made me a more emotionally sound person. Surely I would have become a better father myself.

Men are equipped to move on, lower our heads, and do what’s necessary to survive and maybe even thrive. Or so we think. But the absence or shortcomings of a father in our lives is always there, playing a role in who we become.

I wanted to hear from other men about their dad wishes and find out if other men longed for things from their fathers that they hadn’t received. So I started reaching out to friends and coworkers—men I knew in some capacity and would randomly invite to my home office for conversations about their fathers.

I ended up interviewing dozens of men. Some had good or mostly good relationships with their fathers, and others’ relationships with their dads were difficult or simply nonexistent. All but one I Wish My Dad interview took place at my home. Some of the men were local, some drove hours to Atlanta, Georgia, where I live, and most flew in from various cities for our conversations. I intentionally selected men of different cultures, ages, and socioeconomic environments. I wanted to see what, if any, common desires for relationships with our fathers transcended differences. Turns out that there are common threads among sons: from those who grew up in poverty—sharecropping and picking cotton—to middle-class men to wealthy aristocrats. Although their environments were different, all the men I interviewed wanted to experience love, affection, and time with their fathers.

After the third interview, I put a box of tissues in my office. At some point while sharing his story, every man cried. As one heartfelt conversation after another unfolded, I received tender, transparent, and emotional stories. Each chapter in this book centers on the story told to me by one of the men I interviewed, who graciously gave me their permission to share their story in this book. (Some names have been changed to protect individuals’ privacy.) Some of the stories are tender and demonstrate the loving care of fathers who themselves were wounded but who managed to offer their children what they did not receive themselves. Some of the stories are hard to read and may be especially difficult for readers who have had traumatic experiences.

Many of the I Wish My Dad stories in these pages recount adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which are traumatic events that occur in a child’s life between infancy and the age of seventeen. These events can include witnessing intimate partner violence, experiencing chronic poverty, having an incarcerated loved one, witnessing violence in the community, or having a family member die by suicide. This list is not exhaustive. Research shows that all adults have experienced at least one ACE. The more ACEs someone has, the greater the risk they are at for a host of chronic health conditions, mental health vulnerabilities, and substance misuse in adulthood. These stories demonstrate how sons cope with traumatic experiences and either work toward healing or pass trauma on to their own children.

Each chapter gives us a view of the common longings expressed by sons, and also includes a section of takeaways, which my good friend Kyndra Frazier helped to draft. Kyndra was the founding executive director of HOPE Center Harlem, which works to remove barriers to mental health access for communities of color. She is now the CEO of Selah R&R Inc., working to launch a boutique hotel, resort, and conference center focused on intentional rest and holistic health. She has worked as a therapist, and she holds a master of social work degree from Columbia University and a master of divinity degree from Candler School of Theology.

These are sacred stories that stretch beyond generations: of courage, vulnerability, and transparency. The lessons that those of us who are fathers can learn through the stories will be pronounced. Listening to these sons’ I Wish My Dad stories, we learn to show up emotionally; to meet our kids where they are; to express genuine concern for their feelings and listen without judgment; to create a safe space in our homes where our children feel loved, respected, heard, and valued. We can learn from both the healthy and loving choices these fathers made and from the unhealthy and unloving ones. If a son learns the transformative power of a father’s words, the healing touch of a dad’s hands, and the critical impact of a dad being fully present, he learns how to be a father and an emotionally healthier man for people in his life. While many of these stories point to the ways fathers fail to give their sons what they need, many also introduce us to fathers living out healthy, loving relationships with their sons.

As I talked with more and more sons about what they had longed for from their fathers, I found that conversation centered on three key areas: love, physical affection, and quality time. Saying I love you to other men—even to our sons—and showing them physical affection can be uncomfortable for some men. But I heard sons longing to have heard their dads say I love you and to have been hugged by their dads. And I heard them longing to have spent quality time with their dads; in fact, fathers spending time with sons in ways that meet their sons’ needs rather than in ways that are convenient and comfortable for fathers emerged as a critical theme.

The men in these conversations did something that many men rarely do: We allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. We passed on the superficial niceties, posturing, and bravado that often create shallow relationships and allowed ourselves to be seen on a deeper level. We embraced words and expressions we knew would pain us. But we did it for a worthwhile reason: healing memories from our childhoods and moving toward reconciling relationships with our fathers.

Over and over men would say things like I have never thought about this before, or I’ve never shared this publicly. I realized, through the course of these conversations, that it is not the case that men don’t want to talk about their feelings. We are simply rarely invited to do so.

We live in a world where men are expected to be tough. We are expected to carry heavy burdens without breaking down; it’s almost as if the more emotional weight we bear without flinching is some kind of badge of honor, and that crying is a sign of weakness. What I came to realize—and what you will come to realize as you read these stories—is that all men need is permission to be vulnerable and to tell their stories.

Now I see why so many men were eager to tell their stories: they were finally being given permission to be vulnerable in a safe space. If you are a son or a father or both, know that you have permission to feel, to be vulnerable, to cry, and to do whatever it takes to heal. By reading this book, you can set out on a new journey of wholeness that liberates you from unhealthy ideas of manhood that have never served us well.

The stories I heard from other men were so strong and compelling that I began to wonder what would happen if sons started telling their own fathers, directly, what they longed for. What if sons and fathers could talk to each other with the same vulnerability and authenticity that characterized my conversations with men about their fathers?

And beyond that: how could I write a book about men and their sons sharing I Wish My Dad stories if I was not willing to go through the experience myself?

Bringing the Conversation Home

I decided to create a space for my son Jordan to share his own I Wish My Dad story with me. At the time, my son was attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, and I had been sharing with him about the book for weeks. When I invited Jordan to talk with me about what he wished that I, as his father, had been or done, he responded, Are you sure you want to do this?

I think that was his kind way of saying, You’re not going to like what I have to say.

But the difficult conversation had to happen. I wanted us to stop ignoring the strained relationship that hovered between us, and the only way to do that was to address the past head on. If he could speak honestly about what he longed for from me, and if I could listen with a clear heart and open mind? Well, that would be the foundation of building something new and special.

I knew Jordan’s feelings would impact me, cut through me, and shame me. But I knew I had to take the harsh truth to get to another place with my son. I did not want Jordan to be burdened with the unexpressed feelings that would not serve him well in life; I knew all too well what that was like. I wanted him to release the baggage that really was not his. It was mine. It was time for him to unload it.

Still, I was restless and did not sleep well the week leading up to my conversation with my son. When it occurred, I listened, asked questions as he shared. I did not respond or attempt to explain anything . . . although I wanted to. It was not a time for me to speak. It was time for me to listen.

I pushed Jordan to be honest and told him that he didn’t have to avoid hurting my feelings. I know who I was back then: I wasn’t a good person, and I wanted him to know that it was okay to call it like he saw it. I’m not going to lie. It hurt for me to hear a lot of what he said. But it hurt him even more to have lived through my mistakes as a father. Through that interview, the healing process began. The tension that we carried around for much of our lives dissipated. It was a breaking point—in a good way—for our relationship. Something broke open between us that day. We broke the silence of unspoken truths and climbed the wall that was a barrier to